Thank God for little movements

It seems interesting that a little more than a week ago, I was so worried about your presence because you certainly are starting to make yourself known.

I don’t just mean by my belly popping out, but you’re wiggling away inside it too.

It was about halfway through 16 weeks that I started to feel what seemed like someone randomly tapping me from the inside. However, sometimes that turned into gas, so I wasn’t sure if I was feeling you move.

Then, I felt an odd rolling sensation that made me lean the opposite direction and furrow my eyebrow. It took me a second before I smiled and realized that was the first distinct feeling that I had of the little human living inside my womb.

The taps and popping bubble sensations continued randomly, getting more and more common around 18 weeks.

That’s when, on Dec. 2, I was sitting in work and felt a couple of solid thuds in the lower lefthand portion of my abdomen.

Like many times before, I placed my hand on the spot and pressed gently, wondering if I could feel anything from the outside. I wasn’t really expecting anything because I had tried this many times in the past two weeks and felt nothing.

However, after a second, a solid thud made my abdomen push out where my hand rested.

A big smile crossed my face.

I felt you! It was for sure.

I called your daddy just to tell him that I knew for certain I felt you there for the first time.

At the doctor appointment that afternoon, there you were, waving those arms around, and blocking the doppler signal that was trying to see how fast your heart was beating. It sounded like waves rushing on top of the steady “thud thud thud” of your little beating heart.

Thank you Lord for the blessing of feeling this baby move.

There's so little I can do

I guess I’m not very good at trusting what I can’t see.

It hasn’t been a gut-wrenching, freezing kind of fear. I haven’t even really thought of it as fear. It doesn’t even feel like the worry that I’ve experienced in the past.

However, I’ve been scared.

It was hard for me to believe that you were real. I couldn’t see you, couldn’t see any signs of you when I first found out. I actually went back and took two more pregnancy tests before my first appointment just to make sure that I actually was pregnant.

Then, at the six-week ultrasound, there you were. A tiny little blob that looked nothing like a baby, but more like a bean.

They couldn’t nail down the heartbeat very well, guessing that it just started beating. I held my breath so they could try to keep the cursor over the little flicker, and they guessed it was at 105.

That was a little lower than they wanted, but no one seemed concerned.

I still couldn’t exactly believe that it was that easy, that what we tried for had come true right away, that you were going to be healthy and thriving.

We sat on the news for a while, because we were both scared. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen couples get excited and then feel traumatic pain when a little life doesn’t make it to the outside world. I think I distanced myself from that. I didn’t want to hurt.

We saw what looked like a little gummy bear at our 12-week appointment, and then a full-blown baby, actually waving its perfectly formed hand at 16 weeks.

My belly has started to grow, but I haven’t felt anything yet. Of course, the doubts are still there. Why should we be so lucky to have a perfect pregnancy, a perfect baby, when others around us are going through traumatic times?

I think I keep waiting for something to happen. I don’t want to. But I’m scared that it will.

I can see it now though. I can see you in the crib. I can see myself picking you up and rocking you back to sleep. I can see you tottling around, and your handsome daddy picking you up in his arms.

I want you so badly. I want everything to be perfect, and I pray that it will.

My prayer constantly is for you to have a strong body, strong mind and a heart turned toward God.

Because, although I don’t understand why God takes some babies and lets other families keep theirs, I pray so strongly that He lets us have ours. I pray that my doubts are unfounded and that He doesn’t look down on me for worrying.

I pray that you don’t follow after me in those footsteps, that you are like your dad and take life as it comes, dealing with one moment and one day at a time with the grace of God. I pray that worry and fear doesn’t steal moments of joy from you.

I love you little one. I can’t wait to meet you. And in the meantime, I pray that God’s hand is constantly around you, protecting you from every unforeseen ailment and issue. I pray that you grow big and strong so that you can make a difference in His kingdom someday in a way that I can’t even imagine.

Because, it seems like I’m not very good at imagining.

---

Nate and I had a conversation after I wrote this, about how little control I have over this pregnancy process, about how little control we will truly have over the life of our child. We can do our best, teach our little one the best that we can, give them a foundation, but we will never have full control.

We will never be able to protect our child completely from harm, or illness. We will never be able to completely shape the way that our child acts, because it will have free will.

Nate said, this is actually probably the time that we have the most control, because free will doesn't quite start in the womb.

It was a day that I needed to process, to realize that I don't have control, but I do have a big God who looks over everything and everyone. Daily, for the rest of my life, I will have to put this little life in his hands.

Because there's only so much I can do, but He can do anything.

Spreading the news: Part II

I had been excited to tell my brother too. His shrieked reaction to our engagement was by far the best and most excited, and I knew he’d be excited about this news as well.

When we were decorating for the anniversary party, I kept waiting for an opening. It didn’t come quickly, but I didn’t want to force anything so I just went about the business of helping to smooth out the plastic ruby tablecloths and setting up the albums and photos on the memory table.

My brother walked across the room, “Did I tell you what food I got from the caterer?”

This was my opening.

“Your wife did,” I said, and my heart started pounding again. “I was glad to see it was barbecue, because I thought you might get lunchmeat.”

I rolled up some garbage and started walking across the room to the garbage can.

“And I couldn’t eat it since I’m pregnant,” I finished, nonchalantly.

His head shook as he processed and looked at me. I smiled at him and watched it sink in.

“You’re **** me,” he said as he and his wife ran at me to hug me.

_____________

We had to wait to tell Nate’s family, because the first night we were in town his mom had to work and then both his parents headed out to a party.

Nate's mom had come in from work to ask everyone what’s new, and Nate waited until she asked him, but all she said was, “Hi.” 

We figured it wasn’t the right time as people were sprinting out the door.

That meant that my family knew while Nate’s didn’t, and it made for some comical circumstances at the anniversary party. Nate’s sister’s husband called Nate some names and laughed at him for not having kids yet while talking to my dad, and my dad just laughed along with him. Then Nate’s mom kept telling my dad how great it was to have a grandchild born on her birthday that year, and all the while my dad was thinking that his third grandchild was due only a day after his birthday. Maybe he would get to share a birthday with a grandbaby as well.

But he kept a stone face.

So Nate and I spent the evening with his family, waiting for an opening. We waited for someone to offer me a beer, so that he could say, “She can’t. She’s pregnant.”

No one offered.

Unusual.

We waited for someone to ask us what was new in our lives.

No one asked.

It was hours later, and Nate’s and my eyes met across the room.

There hasn’t been an opening, his eyes said.

I know, mine responded.

“What was that?” His sister asked about our eye conversation.

“Nothing,” I said, smiling and shrugging my shoulders.

It was another hour or so, and Nate’s sister, Erin, finally went upstairs to put her children to bed. Her husband went to grab something from the refrigerator in the basement, so Nate just went for it.

“We’ve been waiting for an opening,” he said to his parents, “but there hasn’t been one, so Kiley’s 10 weeks pregnant.”

Nate’s mom flew to me and hugged me with tears flowing.

I heard our brother-in-law come upstairs and see Nadine hugging me, “Is she pregnant?” he asked.

Nate's sister and our nieces appeared back by the table to hear the news.

It was quite the whirlwind of a weekend telling our immediate families. It made it just a bit more real.

Spreading our good news: Part I

We were squeamish about telling the news. I think if we talked about it, we were squeamish to really start to get excited ourselves. As we got older, we knew more and more people who have had miscarriages. At Nate’s work alone, three couples had suffered miscarriages in the past year.

I wasn’t sure my heart could handle it if I got too excited.

I told God over and over again how much I wanted this child. I prayed daily for a “Strong body, strong mind and a heart turned toward You.” I did everything I could to be healthy so the little one was healthy.

But I held my emotions back. I wanted to just get to that 13-week mark before we told anyone. I didn’t want to let it slip too early and something awful happen that I just couldn’t deal with.

However, we were going back to the Quad Cities for my parents’ 40th anniversary party on Oct. 5, 2019, so we decided it was time to at least let our families in on the news.

I put together a slideshow of more than 100 pictures that my mom sent me of my parents’ lives together. Their wedding, their first home together, photos of my mom pregnant with my brother and with me, family vacations.

In the last section, I expanded the photos to pictures of my brother and his family, and photos of me and Nate, ending with an ultrasound photo that wasn’t labeled and finally the words “Baby Roth due May 2020.”

After dinner on Friday night, my parents sat in front of my work HP laptop with the bright pink flash drive sticking out the side as it began to play the photos, Scriptures and music I had put together.

Nate and I sat at the half-wall turned breakfast bar, just behind my parents as they watched. I leaned against Nate’s legs, and he took my hand.

Then I felt his fingers move to my wrist.

I knew he was feeling my racing pulse. My armpits had started to sweat; I was trying to breathe quietly even though my breath was coming in puffs, and my pulse was probably at least 120 beats per minute.

I looked at him with a smile and rolled my eyes.

“Leave me alone,” I mouthed, smiling at his reaction that I was so nervous at that moment.

My parents didn’t realize anything unusual was going on behind them. My mom was engrossed in the slideshow, tearing up at the memories of the last 40 years.

About 11 minutes later, I recognized that the photos were coming to an end. Nate said something to my dad, who turned around to answer him.

Keep watching, I thought as his eyes looked away from the screen.

Up came the ultrasound photo, and my mom’s head snapped backward looking at me. She had a question in her eyes, and my dad turned around to look at the screen when he saw her reaction.

I smiled and pointed back to the screen.

“Baby Roth due May 2020.”

I heard my dad’s glad, deep chuckle and my mom sprang from her seat and engulfed me in a hug, bawling into my shoulder. Tears sprung to my eyes as I hugged her.

Sacrifice began with the manger

"O come, thou king of nations bring
an end to all our suffering.
Bid every pain and sorrow cease
and reign now as our Prince of Peace."

I'm not sure I've ever made it to verse five of the Christmas hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

It touched me today, for some reason. Thinking that generations longed for Emmanuel to come, to truly be the meaning of that word --- "God with us." We are so blessed that Jesus has come, that he has conquered sin and death by dying on the cross and rising again.

What has also been on my mind lately is how much God gave up to come. We think of Jesus' suffering around Easter time, when we celebrate that he died on the cross and took on our sin so that we can be forgiven and no longer have to face eternal death. He suffered more than we could ever imagine.

Yet, that suffering started much earlier. It started when he took on flesh.

God is so much bigger than we can imagine. We can't fathom that he works without time controlling him, without dimensions controlling him. We have a shallow view of who he is, because we are under the laws of time and space. He isn't.

He still decided to come and give up so much of himself to limit himself to a human body, but also to limit himself to our one-dimensional time, our four-dimensional world.

What if we gave up one of our dimensions? How much would that limit us? What if we could only walk sideways and see two dimensions? It would be so frustrating knowing that the world is so much bigger and we could do so much more if we didn't have this limitation.

I'm sure God's world is more than five dimensions; I'm sure he gave up more than just one. So, imagine how much he limited himself to take on a human body. It was sacrifice, suffering, humiliation from the very beginning.

Did he complain?

No.

For some reason, he decided to help. He didn't help the angels when they rebelled. He didn't decide to make a way to save Satan and the demons. When humans rebelled though, God decided to intervene, out of love.

So this year, I not only look at the nativity with gratefulness for what Jesus was about to do later in his life but for gratefulness for what he did then. Thank you God for taking on the humiliation of the human form, for loving us so much that you gave up so much from the very beginning to become one of us. Thank you for coming to Earth to save us from our sins.

Merry Christmas, and may this season remind you of how much God sacrificed for us, how much Jesus sacrificed for us from the very moment he entered Mary's womb.

Finding out

We were taking our mid-morning siesta while vacationing at Sunshine Lake outside of Hearst, ON. Nate lay with “Genesis” by Dennis Prager on a twin bed on one side of the room, and I lay reading “Beyond the Cosmos” snuggled in my sleeping bag on the twin bed at the other side of the room.

That’s when I heard two small words clear as a bell in my head.

“You’re pregnant.”

Wow.

I didn’t even really question it. I just knew in my being that God had let me in on a little secret, and I quietly prayed with a grateful heart as the words in front of me blurred. My concentration wasn’t on them at the moment.

--------

A week later, we were back in Spirit Lake and I decided it was far enough along in my cycle that I could tell I was pregnant with a test.

I unwrapped one from a pink wrapper and dunked in the old Associated Press coffee cup. I waited.

One pink line.

Hmmm…

I took one the next day, and when it showed only one line. I was convinced that it wasn’t a strong enough test, so I Googled the best and went to the Wal-Mart in a nearby town --- where I figured I wouldn’t know anyone --- and picked up the First Response two-pack. I debated using one right in the Wal-Mart bathroom, but that just seemed sad, so I waited the 20-minute drive to get home.

I followed the instructions, and still nothing.

I hadn’t told Nate I had tried multiple tests, because I had no real reason to think that I was pregnant other than those two words I’d heard a week ago. I didn’t want him to think I was silly, trying test after test. I finally told him I’d tested though.

“You think you’re pregnant?” he asked while we sat on opposite plush chairs in the living room.

“Yes, I do,” I said candidly.

“I don’t think you are. I think a test would show by now,” he said.

I decided to wait a couple more days and test again. Bloody noses and a few other symptoms, but nothing major. Still negative.

I had to be patient. I’d give it until a full week after I had my first test, and although I debated testing in between I figured it was just a waste unless I gave it some time.

-----------

On Friday, Aug. 23, I grabbed the other First Response test, hoping it was more sensitive than the other tests, and unwrapped it. When I set the test down, it took about two seconds before a second pink line joined the first.

My heart started pounding.

Nate didn’t have to work that day, so he was asleep while I had gotten up for work. I did it on purpose, because I knew if I had a positive test, I didn’t want to have to wait all day for him to get home from work without telling him, and I didn’t want to tell him over the phone. So I quietly crept into our room, where he was asleep under the blue and white quilt, his back toward me.

I tapped him on the shoulder softly.

“Nate.”

He rolled over.

“I’m pregnant,” I whispered.

He looked at me with sleepy eyes, registering what I had just said.

“Yay!”

We smiled.

“Can I see?” He asked.

I trotted back to the bathroom and grabbed the test, bringing it over to show him the two now very distinct pink lines.

I had gotten up with plenty of time before work, so I crawled back in bed and snuggled up with his arm around me. He kissed my hair, and we were both quiet, although I’m sure prayers and thoughts ran through his head just as much as they did mine.

Peanut butter blossoms and a happy 40th

We celebrated my parents' 40th anniversary last weekend.

They didn't want a party, but my brother and I didn't take "No" for an answer, because 40 years deserves to be celebrated. Especially in today's time when marriage seems like it is as temporary and easily thrown away as a plastic water bottle, it is important to note when someone has accomplished 40 years together, let alone a happy 40.

Nate and I are blessed with a wonderful marriage. I fall deeper in love with him all the time, and I'm so thankful for the man that he is. We credit a lot of things for our marriage, but we definitely credit the wonderful examples that our parents have set before us.

Not only have my parents been married 40 years, but I distinctly remember a walk through Scott County Park in high school when they were ahead of us holding hands. I thought, "I want to be that in love when I've been married that long."

They quarrel. They disagree. They have different personalities. However, that has never ceased them to stop loving each other or to stop putting their relationship first. They have worked through their differences through the years and stuck it out, and I'm grateful to God for helping them through and grateful to them for perseverance in even in the difficulties.

Congratulations Mom and Dad on 40 years. I hope your next 40 are even more wonderful.

At their party, they put together little goodie bags of Hershey kisses to thank people for coming, and I ended up with several bags of them.

Now, peanut butter blossoms with Hershey kisses may be one of my favorite cookies, but I'm too cheap to buy kisses so I never make them. In fact, I think the last time I did was to use up the extra kisses from our wedding seven years ago.

This celebration gave me a good reason to make some tonight, and I even tried to healthy them up a bit. A bit.

Peanut butter blossoms
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat butter and peanut butter until incorporated. Add sugars, egg and vanilla. Beat until incorporated.

Add baking soda, baking powder and flour. Slowly mix in until all ingredients come together.

Using a tablespoon measure, plop balls of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 9 minutes.

Immediately on removing from over, place unwrapped Hershey kiss in the center of each cookie and press gently. Let stand on cookie sheet until cool and kiss is no longer melty. Move to cooling rack and cool completely.

Beef is more filling than walleye

(Continued from this post)

We woke up on our last day ready to head out. Everything was packed. We ate a couple of boiled eggs that we had left from the week and finished putting our last-minute gear into our totes and bags.

By 7:15 a.m., everything was ready on the boulder by the dock.

Now, we weren't exactly sure what time our plane would arrive. We had gotten an early start when we were being dropped off, so the people who were there to leave the week before had gotten on the plane back at about 7:45 a.m. We figured someone between 7:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. was probably reasonable to assume, depending on if another group was taken to its cabin before ours was.

We walked and relaxed, read, listened to the waves and time passed slowly. I was just trying to stay upbeat, even though we had wanted to be on the plane by at least 9 a.m. in order for the rest of our day to go as planned.

That didn't happen, so we grabbed our pillows and laid down on the dock in the sunshine and tried to get a little more shut-eye. I dozed, and Nate smiled as I sleep-twitched.

It was finally about 11:30 a.m. when we heard the roar of an incoming float plane and went to stand on the boulder while it quickly dropped to the water. A French couple got off the plane, the woman with purple hair, and we helped them move their stuff and then got ours on the plane and took off.

From the air, we could see the area much better than from below. We could see that a trail behind our cabin actually wasn't that long and we could have followed it to an open area to explore. We could see where the streams that we tried to paddle down actually ended up.

"I guess we could have just kept walking and found some areas to explore!" I said to Nate.

We shrugged.

It still had been a wonderful time.

----

Fast forward about two hours, and we were back in Long Lac, where we again stopped at the pharmacy that had been so helpful to us on our way to Hearst.

The building was made of large, shiny windows, and as we walked inside to get some bottles of water --- as opposed to the slightly rust-colored water filtered from the lake that was still in our own bottles --- I caught a glimpse of myself and giggled.

"I look rough," I said to Nate.

It had been three days since I'd last showered, and although my clothes appeared clean, my ponytail, hat, leggings, wool socks and hiking boots didn't give a sophisticated aura. My greasy face didn't either. I needed a shower.

----

Fast forward another two hours, and we arrived back to the first town we had stopped at in Canada to get gas and some Tim Horton's again. We split ways, and I asked Nate what he wanted to eat.

"You know what I like," he said.

So I ordered two sour cream glazed donuts, a turkey sandwich for him and a chicken wrap for me. I handed him the food in the car and told him what it was.

"Is that OK?" I asked.

"That's great. As long as it wasn't fish. That would be just mean."

----

Fast forward another three or so hours, and we arrived in Grand Marais, MN.

It was an adorable little town, and our hotel had the perfect view of Lake Superior and sailboats in the harbor.

Before enjoying the view though, it was time to shower. And then I realized I left my razor in the cabin. So Nate went to get me a razor from the nearby grocery store while I hopped into the hot spray.

All I will say is, I was dirty. After having been in the shower 10 minutes, I decided to wash my arms once more with the white washcloth, and I squeezed it to see brown water flow out.

I was that dirty.

Fresh as a daisy, we headed off to find hamburgers. After a week of fish, that's all we wanted, hamburgers.

We found a restaurant-bar and ordered what were the biggest burgers I had seen in a while. In fact, I ate half of my jalapeno-topped burger and just couldn't fit anything else in.

The waitress came back and looked at me oddly when I said I was done. I assured her I did like the food.

"I just can't eat anymore."

It turns out, beef is way more filling than walleye.

Ducks and rain

(Continued from this post)

We prayed over our breakfast of bacon and eggs and Nate ended with, "Please let us see some wildlife still."

We had read journal entries of people seeing all kinds of wildlife, and although had seen telltale signs, there just wasn't much showing itself during our trip.

At the beginning of the week, a family of mallards had come up near the dock to forage and dig up water bugs by the big boulder in front of our cabin. I had crouched down on the dock to get some photos of them, and they didn't seem to mind us there. They stayed for about 10 minutes and then lined up and continued on down the lake, but they hadn't come nearby since. We had seen three ducks together, but not the four.

That afternoon, we saw a line of four ducks coming up to the dock as we brought the boat in. We stopped to watch them as they pricked and preened their wings, making sure they were absolutely clean so that they stayed bouyant and waterproof.

I laid down on the dock to watch them, and Nate returned to sit on the boulder after taking some stuff inside.

We figured three of the mallards were siblings while one was the mother. She quietly peeped at them while they preened and dug for bugs in the water, and they peeped back softly, making sure to stay within sound distance.

Then they started to do something I had never seen before.

One of the young mallards flipped upside down, kicked its feet in the air, flipped back over, rose up on its back legs, flapped its wings three times and swam like a jet about five feet away. Its sibling flipped over, kicked its feet up in the air, repeated the process and landed next to its sibling.

The young mallards continued this ruckus, and Nate and I looked at each other with smiling mouths agape. Neither of us had experienced this playfulness from a duck before.

One of the siblings that flipped over, kicked its feet, flipped back and dove underneath the water, shooting about 10 feet away to its sibling and popping up right next to it like, "Surprise."

They kept playing for about five-10 minutes, while we watched all the frivolity.

The little ones finally calmed down and came back to the shallow area to look for food, and Mom walked up onto the rock to continue to preen.

However, it wasn't just any rock. It was the same rock that Nate sat on. She perched about 5 feet away from him, not caring in the slightest that he was there. She itched her head with her back feet, spread her wings and flapped, bent her head to get a drink.

It was the closest we've ever been to ducks, and we would move around and they still didn't care about us. They had nothing to fear from humans, probably not much experience with humans at all.

We watched the ducks for probably an hour before another storm started to roll in and we headed up to the cabin.

After the short storm, we went out to the dock to enjoy some afternoon sunshine, although some clouds were still in the distance. Everything was silent around us, and we soaked in all the peace.

"Listen," Nate said. "You can hear the rain that storm."

He pointed to a dark cloud to the north, probably four or five miles away.

When we both were quiet, we could actually hear a rustling sound of rain hitting trees, from that distance away. We were sitting in the sun and listening to a storm cut through the tranquility around us.

"That is something we'd never be able to experience back home," Nate said. "That is so cool."

It was a quiet we had never experienced before, a peace that was untouched, a world as if people didn't exist. We were in such a wild place, and we loved it.

I enjoyed watching the storm, and I had also enjoyed watching the ducks but honestly didn't think that much of it. That evening, before dinner, Nate prayed, "Thank you for the time watching ducks and for the answered prayer."

That convicted my heart. He had asked God for a wildlife experience, and I felt a bit sad that we hadn't seen any moose or bears. However, my thankful husband had acknowledged that God had sent us a blessing of an up-close experience with wild ducks, a creature that we both absolutely love. Nate had noticed and taken to heart the gift that I hadn't given God credit for. It made me stop and thank God not only for that blessing that day but also for the blessing of a husband who appreciates and notices the little things.

That day, we also ate pretty well. Here's what we had:

Walleye pesto dip
4 walleye filets
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 jar pesto
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup parmesan
4 green onions, chopped

Heat oil in a cast iron skillet and add walleye filets. Cook through. Add cream cheese, sour cream, pesto and lemon juice and mix together, breaking up walleye as you do. Once cream cheese is melted and incorporated, sprinkle parmesan on top and place in 375 degree oven to cook until bubbling.

Remove from oven and top with green onions.

We dipped homemade flatbread into it, but you could use French bread, pita chips, tortilla chips, really anything. It's so good.

Almond walleye and pesto gnocchi
For walleye:
6 walleye filets
3/4 cup bread crumbs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup ground almonds
1 egg
2 Tbsp. milk

For gnocchi:
8 ounces gnocchi
2 ounces whiskey cheddar (a soft, white cheddar)
1/2 jar pesto
2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the egg and milk in a bowl and whisk to combine. Dip each filet in the egg mixture and then into a mixture of other dry ingredients. Once coated, place in non-stick, oven-ready skillet (all metal, no plastic). Bake walleye for approximately 15 minutes or until cooked through and breading is crispy.

While walleye is baking, boil 4 cups of salted water and add gnocchi. Boil until gnocchi floats to the top and then drain. Place cheddar and pesto into pot with gnocchi and continue to cook on low until cheddar is melted. Add lemon juice.

Serve walleye with a side of pesto gnocchi. It's rich, but it's delicious!

(Next post here)

Looking for bears

(Continued from this post)

We both woke up and looked at each other.

A loud thud somewhere outside had jolted us out of dreamland. The night was still pitch black, but Nate got up to check the front door to see if he could see anything.

A chair was propped up against the door that didn't lock, not for fear of someone stumbling across camp but more for precaution in case a hungry bear smelled something delicious inside so we could hear the chair and grab the shotgun.

We both went back to sleep.

The next morning though, we continued wondering what we had heard.

"Did a branch fall on top of the cabin? It was windy last night."

"I went outside and didn't see any big branches down."

Nate went out to explore the area again and came back with an announcement: There were claw scratches on the cabin.

Now, we had read in the cabin journal that people had heard a bear clawing at the cabin and found scratches on the back and front the next morning. We circled the cabin and found where that journal mentioned, and saw the grayed/weathered scratch marks.

The scratch marks by our bedroom, however, were still raw wood and fresh.

"I don't know if it was last night or some other recent time, but there's definitely a bear around."

We really wanted to see a bear, or a moose, or the mountain lion that had been spotted in the area. So far, though, we hadn't seen anything except for some sandhill cranes, gulls, a bald eagle, loons, diving ducks, kingbirds and a crazy rusty-looking finch.

So we decided to explore a bit.

We attempted to canoe back into a waterway, but we were told on Tuesday that the lake was about 2 feet lower than usual, so we got stuck on a tree only a few feet in.

"Why don't we try that trail?" I suggested.

On one beach, we could see some sort of trail. Nate had read that a logging road was nearby, and we read in a journal entry from 2012 that fishermen showed up at the lake while a couple was staying there. We assume that the trail was an old road.

It must have been a very old road, because the trail disappeared quite quickly, although there were some beer cans strewn about and remnants of a fire having been put out. We thought perhaps someone had hunted the area.

We followed the trail and crawled through some brush and overgrown grass, taking precautions to look behind us about every 10 feet or so to make sure that a mountain lion or other animal wasn't stalking behind us.

When we walked into an open area, filled with blooming purple and yellow flowers, I thought "This is exactly where bears like to hang out." You'd think I'd think, "Wow, gorgeous," and I did, but bears were definitely on the mind.

A few more feet and the trees crowded around once more, and we looked down at one muddy spot to see a hoof print. It had to have been eight inches across. I had thought I'd heard a moose the other night grunt from across the lake, and now we knew there was definitely a moose in the area. The intermittent rains throughout the week had softened the ground enough to show several moose prints as we walked along.

We got to a spot where the Joe pye weed bloomed magenta but grew over our heads, and we turned back.

Almost to where we started, Nate began to slow down.

"I'm really curious where this ends."

"We can keep going if you want."

"We'll go another 50 feet and see if it clears."

We turned around again, and about 25 yards later, I saw something else.

"Bear track."

A big paw with claws had left an imprint in the mud near where we had originally seen the moose track.

We kept an eye around us.

When we got back to the Joe pye weed, we pushed through a few feet, and Nate stopped.

"Should we keep going?"

"Is it wise to continue going through stuff where we don't know what's right in front of us?"

"No. Let's go back."

We walked about 10 yards.

"I forget sometimes that my first job is to take care of my lovely," Nate said.

"I never want to hold you back babe."

We went back to our canoe and followed the shoreline, questioning some of the trees that had been cut down and trying to figure out why. We even tried going up another waterway in the canoe but again got stuck pretty quickly and pushed ourselves back out.

Instead of heading back to shore, we dug into the barbecue rib MRE we had packed and enjoyed it on the water before a storm rolled in.

It cleared up quickly, like usual, and we showered that afternoon and enjoyed some time of the dock before dinner of wild rice and walleye soup.

Walleye wild rice soup
4 walleye filets
1 cup wild rice or wild rice blend
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
4 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
4 cups chicken stock/broth
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a stockpot, melt the butter and saute onion, carrot and celery. Season with salt and pepper. After about five minutes, stir in flour to make a roux. Slowly add milk and stir until milk thickens. Add chicken broth slowly and continue to stir to incorporate.

Add walleye filets and wild rice. Walleye will cook and fall apart as the rice cooks.

Continue to simmer until wild rice is cooked through, about 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally to keep rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Continue to season with salt and pepper as needed.

(Read the next post)

Leadheads, check-in and nighttime photography

(Continued from this post)

Monday was a hot one.

We got up early and caught enough fish for the day, came back to the cabin and crashed.

Waking up about 10 a.m., we had a late breakfast, enjoyed our coffee and wasted away part of the morning.

By the time we headed outside, it was a warm one. Temperatures were supposed to hit about 85 degrees, and although we didn't have Internet, we figured that was about spot on. I did something I'd never do back home, I went fishing in just leggings and a sports bra.

"Who's going to see you?" Nate said, convincing me to go for it rather than keep sweating.

It was a rather calm, relaxing day soaking up the sun with our line in the water. Since the day was warm, we also had enough sun to warm up our hanging shower bag so we could actually get clean!

For dinner, we had fried fish --- and this Long John Silver's copycat recipe is my absolute go-to.

Long John Silver's copycat batter
6 walleye filets
3/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
salt, to taste
3/4 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients and then stir in water until batter forms.

Heat oil in a cast iron skillet. Dip filets in batter and fry.

I handed Nate the malt vinegar I packed, because that's what he likes to dip his fried fish in.

"You brought me malt vinegar. That's what I love about you."

----------------------

For the past two days, we had gotten up early only to then take a nap. Plus, we weren't having any trouble catching walleye later in the day, so when the alarm went off on Tuesday morning I looked over to see Nate turn it off, roll back over and close his eyes.

I did that too, and so we slept until about 9 a.m.

After a leisurely breakfast and devotion, we finally decided to head out onto the water.

We continued to catch walleye in the little cove we found, and at one point, Nate looked at my leadhead, which was missing both its painted-on eyes and had teeth marks from the northern and the walleye indented on it, and laughed.

"I think your leadhead has seen better days."

Plus, his hook has been ripped out of a walleye mouth so it was way too wide open to be able to catch anything easily. We both needed new lures.

We headed in for a lunch of walleye citrus salad --- by far our favorite menu item the entire trip --- and then went out to read on the dock while we awaited the arrival of the outfitter which was coming to make sure we were alive.

The float plane arrived at about 3 p.m., and two gentlemen, one with a thick French accent, got out to make sure everything was OK at camp. They first handed us a bright yellow box that held the satellite phone we had paid to rent that week.

"You guys rented a satellite phone?" One man asked as he handed it to us.

"Yes, we forgot it," Nate said.

"We were trying to figure out how you told us you forgot it since you didn't have a satellite phone to tell us."

"We realized it on the flight in that we did, but it was too late then," I said.

That had been another anxious part of the flight in for me. About halfway there, I turned sharply around to Nate in the back seat.

"We forgot the satellite phone," I said.

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess it's too late now."

But we had the assurance of the phone for the rest of the week at least.

The guys asked us about our experience so far and regaled us with some of their own experiences hunting moose, and we told them we had enough walleye to eat which was what we needed since we didn't bring anything else.

"You didn't bring other food?" One man asked.

"No. We figured we're on a fishing trip, we'll eat fish."

"You didn't bring steaks to grill?" He pressed.

"Nope."

Nate and I smiled at each other. Apparently, we are survivalists and didn't even know it.

One of the things I had really wanted to do in Canada was see the stars, but each night clouds rolled in as the sun set, and it also didn't get dark until far past the time we were tired.

But Tuesday night promised to be clear, and we decided it would be the perfect night to try some long exposures.

We played cribbage and Kings in the Corner for several hours waiting for the sun to finally give way to night, and we put on layers, not to fight the cold but the mosquitoes.

Nate, clad in his rain gear and a netted hat, followed me out to the boulder where we stared at the night sky, still partially light from the moon. The galaxy of stars was a bright band above us, and the moon was full and lit up the evening. It wasn't even minutes before I saw two shooting stars and Nate saw yet another that I missed.

I worked on focus and long exposure for night shots and was pretty pleased with how they came out.

Then I decided to try one with the moon to see if it had enough light to make more definition in the photos.

My camera clicked as the shutter opened and 30 seconds later closed. I looked at the screen and my eyes opened.

"Holy cow. It looks like daytime!"

I showed the photo to Nate.

"The moon looks like the sun! But look, you can still see the stars in the sky."

Walleye with citrus salad
4 walleye filets
2 Tbsp. butter
Grapefruit, segmented and chopped
Orange, segmented and chopped
1/3 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 red onion, chopped
1/2 roma tomato, chopped
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
Chopped lettuce
Cilantro, chopped

Melt butter in a cast iron skillet and cook walleye through, on both sides.

Combine grapefruit, orange, bell pepper, red onion, tomato and lemon juice in bowl and stir to combine. Let rest of 5-10 minutes for flavors to meld.

Place chopped lettuce on plate and lay filets on top. Top with citrus salsa and cilantro, if desired.

(Read the next post)

Catching more than a northern

Continued from Part 2 (click here)

We woke up early.

It was 6 a.m. and the alarm on Nate's phone went off. Since we were on eastern time, that meant it felt like 5 a.m.

He hit snooze, and I rolled over in my twin-sized bed and went back to sleep beneath the warmth of the green, fleece-lined sleeping bag.

The alarm went off again. Snooze. Again. Snooze.

It was finally 6:30 a.m. and we knew we needed to get out there and catch some walleye with the morning bite or we might not eat that day. We had to at least have enough fish to get us through the day.

So we bundled up for the chilly Canadian morning, grabbed a coffee cake muffin, loaded up our gear in the boat and headed out to the same cove that we had success with on the first day.

It was chilly as the sun made its way over the trees, but it sure was beautiful. I yawned while I watched my line bob in the wake.

A bite!

I started to reel in but forget to set my line, so the fish got away with my worm. I grabbed a new earthworm to put on my hook while Nate reeled in his first fish. He got the second walleye, and I got the third.

Then Nate yanked his pole up to set the line and started to reel in a fish that certainly didn't want to be caught. It pulled and tugged while he reeled, and it finally rolled on its side to use its razor-sharp teeth to cut the line and steal Nate's lure --- a northern.

"Man! That northern stole my whole lure!"

"Crud," I said, getting cut off when I felt a bite on my line.

I started reeling a fighting fish, and Nate got the net ready. As he swooped it down and grab the fish from the below the surface, we realized it wasn't a walleye but a northern.

And this northern not only had my lure attached to its lip, but it also had a turquoise leadhead in its mouth --- Nate's lure.

"I caught your lure!"

We got the lures out of the northern's mouth, threw it back and continued to laugh. What were the odds that I would catch the exact fish that stole Nate's lure literally seconds after he lost it? We knew that was going to be quite the story for our fishing trip.

Nate caught one more walleye, and we knew we had enough food for the day even if we didn't catch anything else later, so we headed back to the cabin for breakfast.

Coffee brewed in the percolator, and I got the eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator.

When I went to crack an egg into the hot cast iron skillet, it cracked but didn't break. I hit it again, still seemed a little too solid for a normal egg.

"The eggs are frozen..." I said to Nate.

"Uh oh."

We had packed the eggs in the cooler the day before, and they must have gotten a little too cold sitting in ice and then got even colder in the frigid propane refrigerator.

I held them over the hot pan one by one, trying to warm them in my hands and defrost them. Slowly, they came back and cracked into the sizzling skillet.

It took a little longer than anticipated, but we had breakfast.

"It's Sunday, isn't it?" Nate asked.

"It is Sunday! We should do some kind of devotional."

I remembered that I had some Beth Moore books downloaded on my phone, so I went to turn it on and access one. We read some Scripture and read a chapter.

It was only 9 a.m., and we both looked at each other with tired eyes.

"I think I need a nap," one of us said, but we were both thinking it.

Later that afternoon, we attempted to shower with our hanging shower bag. The sun had warmed the water to a tepid temperature, but we still wanted to try it.

Left looking for a place to hang the shower bag that was out of the grass so it wasn't mosquito-ridden and in the sun so it was warmer, Nate attempted to prop two ladders up on the dock. However, the wind blew and toppled them.

He grabbed an ax inside to hack a branch off of a tree near the shoreline that would work as a second-best option. The moment he grabbed the ax, though, the head of it shook and slid right off.

I was picking up a few things inside and I saw him working on the shower situation outside when he came in with a huge smile on his face.

"I used a wooden clothespin to rehang the ax."

"Good job McGyvering it."

"Your dad would be so proud. I think he's the only person that would appreciate it."

We did shower, and although it was a bit chilly in the late afternoon, it felt good to be clean for the evening.

All in all, it was a pretty relaxing Sunday.

Plus, here are Sunday's dishes:

Walleye hot dip
4 walleye filets
4 ounces cream cheese
2 ounces cheddar cheese
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 Tbsp. butter
Topping: 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1 Tbsp. paprika
Sliced artisan bread

Melt butter in a cast iron pan and saute onions until translucent. Add walleye and cook through, breaking up into pieces.

Melt cream cheese into onion and fish mixture, then melt cheddar. Mix in salsa.

Top with bread crumbs and paprika. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly.

Remove from oven and dip bread in to eat. Make sure to cool slightly before serving!

Fish tacos
4 walleye filets
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 Tbsp. jerk seasoning
1 egg
Tortilla shells
Toppings: Cilantro, avocado, sour cream, chopped lettuce

Heat vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet. Mix bread crumbs and jerk seasoning. Beat egg in a bowl. Dip filets in egg wash and then in bread crumb mixture.

Fry fish until crispy and done all the way through.

Layer on tortilla with desired toppings.

I also served the fish tacos with a mixture of white rice, chopped red bell peppers and corn, similar to the base of the fish taco bowl. We had a limited amount of food, so I made everything work more than once!

(Read the next post)

Settling into camp

Continued from Part I

We woke up early, showered in a real bathroom for the last time in a week and put on our outdoor clothes.

I pulled on my new leggings with antibacterial fabric that was supposed to help them not stink for at least three wears, wool socks, hiking boots and a long-sleeve top.

We gathered our stuff and headed out of town, stopping at Tim Horton's for coffee and a sour cream glazed donut along the way.

We were supposed to arrive at Hearst Air at 6:30 a.m., but we didn't want to be late and heard that people show up pretty early so we got there at 6:15 a.m. The owner was walking out of her house to the shop, where we met her. We took care of final arrangements and she said, "It will be a couple of minutes. You're kind of early."

"Sorry! We didn't want to be late. We're in no rush."

The sun was just coming up over the horizon, behind the conifer trees that edged Carey Lake. Pink and purple shone as a light fog rose from the calm waters.

A young guy with a French accent came to weigh our luggage. We were supposed to have 100 pounds of gear per person, and we had weighed everything but thought we were a little over.

"You're fine; it's just you on the plane," the owner, Melanie, assured us.

We came in at 214 pounds, but they didn't charge us for the overages. In fact, they let us bring an extra cooler that we had set aside for them to bring later in the week on a check flight.

I piled everything, including our sunglasses, onto the luggage cart to be weighed and next thing I knew, it was being wheeled to the plane.

I quickly walked behind, because I hadn't thought they would take it so fast, and I wasn't sure our passports were secured in the bag I had put them in quickly, and I knew our sunglasses were just laying on top. I tried to get the guy's attention as the pilot picked up our lifejackets and the sunglasses dangled from them precariously as he threw them into the plane.

"Our sunglasses..." I pointed.

The kid tried to convey it to the French-speaking pilot, and I felt bad as I pointed out they had fallen underneath a seat of the plane. The pilot handed them to me, and I grabbed them and let them continue with their jobs.

My anxiety continued though as they quickly ushered us on to the plane and took off before I really could calm down about the fact that we had everything we needed. I sat the entire flight with my hands in my lap, monkeying with the string that closes the top of my orange sunglasses bag. "Nervous hands," Nate said later.

Cold air blew at my face as I watched out the window, amazed at how untouched the landscape was. Miles upon miles of dense green forest was broken up only by shallow lakes and a massive lake in the distance --- that I later realized was just fog on the horizon, reflecting light to make it look like a lake.

It took about a half hour for us to reach our destination and touch the float plane down on the water. We rode across the mirror-like lake to a dock attached to a large boulder, where an older man stood with a younger man, amidst bags and totes of gear.

We unpacked. They packed. The plane left.

We were alone.

Nate and I moved our gear into the little brown cabin and unloaded what we could. I put sheets on the twin beds and laid out our sleeping bags and pillows. We hung up our jackets and rain gear and unloaded the coolers into the propane refrigerator.

We didn't even check what time it was but headed out in the Sea Nymph --- the aluminum boat that was ours for the week --- to see if we could catch ourselves some lunch.

We hadn't brought any meals with us. I had the ingredients for 12 walleye meals for lunch and dinner, and we had bacon and eggs for breakfast. In fact, we had packed so lightly that the pilot asked if we were survivalists when he loaded our stuff.

We thought he was joking.

He wasn't.

Apparently, most people don't eat the fish that they catch. They bring frozen entrees or steak to grill. We figured, we were on a fishing trip. We would eat what we could catch. We had read journals that it wasn't that hard to catch fish at Sunshine Lake, so we were confident we would be fine.

And if we didn't catch fish, we had Goldfish...

We headed to a little cove to the west and put down our leadheads with twisters and worms. The day was so calm and the water so glasslike that we didn't get an automatic bottom bounce from the movement of the boat. In fact, we didn't get any movement from the boat at all.

I had no idea what I was doing --- I haven't been soft water fishing for a long time, so I just followed what Nate said to do, bottom bounce. I slowly lifted and lowered my pink Shakespeare rod to make my bait look appetizing to the walleye at the bottom of the lake.

It must have worked, because I caught one!

We got it in the boat with the help of a black net that someone had left behind, and Nate looked at me. I looked at him.

"What do I do?"

The walleye just hung there.

"Take it off the hook."

"I don't know how. They have barbs!"

A few years ago, I had been barbed by a perch during a kids fishing day at work, and that had left me quite squeamish about fish that could hurt me when I try to take them off the hook.

Nate took the walleye and quickly had the hook out of its mouth and had it on the stringer.

He caught one. I caught two more.

Four walleye. Enough to eat, and we were starving. Those Tim Horton's donuts didn't last long.

I made Fish Po Boy sandwiches for lunch (see recipe below) and we scarfed them down figuring it had to be about 2 p.m.

Nate checked the clock on his phone. 11 a.m.

We settled down for a nap, some more fishing, fish taco bowls for dinner, cards and bedtime.

It was a jam-packed first day.

Walleye Po Boy
4 walleye fillets
2 Tbsp. oil
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1 tsp. lemon juice
Dash of tobasco
Sliced tomato
Chopped lettuce
Panini bread

Bread fillets with bread crumb mixture and fry in hot oil. Mix mayo, ketchup, lemon juice and Tobasco and spread on bread sliced almost all the way through. Layer in fried fish and top with tomato and lettuce.

Walleye taco bowls
1 cup instant white rice
4 ounces canned corn
1/3 of a red pepper, chopped
4 walleye fillets
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 Tbsp. jerk seasoning
Toppings: Chopped avocado, cilantro, salsa, sour cream, chopped lettuce

Boil 1 cup of water and add rice, corn, red pepper. Boil for 5 minutes until rice has absorbed all water. Take off heat.

Meanwhile, bread fillets in mixture of bread crumbs and jerk seasoning. Fry in hot oil.

Layer rice in bowl and top with pieces of fish. Add whatever toppings you would like.

(Read Part 3 here)

Grocery store quandries and gravy fries

It was 11 a.m., and we crossed the border into Canada after an six-hour drive to Duluth and an OAR concert on the shores of Lake Superior.

Our phones said "No Service," and a sign read "Entering eastern time zone."

We switched the clock on the dash of the 2002 red Ford Explorer to noon.

That puts an hour behind our schedule, I thought with a little anxiety, like every other trip I've been on. I'm usually a lot quieter and a lot more on edge, thinking through back-up plans to everything that could go wrong until we actually reach out destination. This trip was no different.

We started out on Highway 11, changing our thinking from mph to km/h, and I went to look for the La Poutine's address in Thunder Bay on the GPS.

I went to the search area and changed from Minnesota, USA, to Canada and then looked confused at the screen when it allowed me to only choose New Brunswick province. We were in Ontario.

I clicked on the search area and wrote Ontario. "Not found," the screen read in small black letters.

"Uh, the GPS doesn't have Canada. It only has New Brunswick."

Nate looked at me questioningly, and I went through the process again. "No, look it just says New Brunswick. It doesn't have any other part of Canada in it."

"OK, well, I know this road leads us all the way to Hearst, so I know where we're going. I don't know the address to the restaurant though, so we may be out of luck there."

"Maybe we'll be able to find it or stop and ask for directions."

I had really wanted to try some authentic poutine when we crossed the border, but I didn't realize how big Thunder Bay was. In a city of more than 100,000 people, finding one restaurant without an address and without any cell coverage to look it up is difficult. We drove through the city for about a half-hour and finally gave up, assuming we'd be able to find something to eat along the way.

Across the border, we were passing nothing but trees, and I commented on that fact. "This isn't how I expected Canada to look."

You see, my experience with Canada was limited. As a kid, I went to Niagra Falls with my family, but that is basically the U.S. What I had read about Canada consisted of prairie stories by Janette Oke, and so I expected many more grasslands than I was seeing amidst the bluffs covered in conifers.

We continued out of Thunder Bay and were surprised at how rural everything was. There weren't small towns every now and then. There weren't even gas stations or fast food restaurants.

Our stomachs were growling, and I saw a sign that said there was a business section of Highway 11 that had restaurants, gas and a bed and breakfast. We took the turn and continued driving, but nothing commercial presented itself.

In fact, nothing presented itself except more conifers.

The bypass ended, and we merged back on to Highway 11, where the speed limit of 90 km/h was apparently a suggestion because cars with Ontario license plates blazed past us.

It was an hour before we saw a sign for Nipigon. We entered the "town" and saw a gas station and a Tim Horton's.

"Is this it?"

"I think so."

Nate and I looked at each other and laughed. This was a town? This place was insane. I was expecting a continuation of what we were used to in the U.S., and the farther north we went, the less it looked like that.

We stopped at Tim Horton's and got some food, starting our meal with two sour-cream glazed donuts, which we may have had two other times during our trip as well, and headed back on Highway 11.

The road curved around Nipigon River, amidst rocky cliffs and tree-covered bluffs. We passed ditches of wildflowers and more conifers than I had ever expected to see. There were no open areas, except where a shallow lake broke the line of trees and then disappeared.

There were no houses, very few off-roads and hardly any cars.

It was the most secluded, untouched place we had ever been, and we just couldn't get over it. We laughed at how our expectations were changing tremendously.

The hours dragged on, and I started my anxiety dance in my head again. At this point, we weren't going to get to Hearst until 8 p.m. We had to be at our outfitter early Saturday morning. I still had to get groceries, and we had to pick up our bait that we pre-ordered from the tackle shop. We had no idea when a grocery store might close in a small town and were pretty sure the bait and tackle place would be shut up tight by the time we arrived. However, we also didn't have any cell service to be able to check on hours or to call the bait shop to say we'd be late.

We entered Longlac, or Long Lake, a First Nation community, and passed a general store. "Think they have groceries?" I asked.

We pulled into the lot and quickly decided that they didn't have groceries. It didn't look like they had much of anything.

We cross the bridge over Long Lake, seeing toys sitting by the side of the road and dogs roaming around, and we entered the small town. We drove around to see if we could find a library with wi-fi or a grocery store, but there didn't seem to be either of those things.

Nate stopped at a Rexall Pharmacy. "Maybe this is their grocery store," he said.

We walked in, and it was bright and clean, but it was just a pharmacy. There were boxed beverages and bags of chips, but there wasn't the fresh items that I needed.

"What do you need?" Nate asked.

"Everything I couldn't bring over the border --- grapefruit, lettuce, sour cream, milk, eggs, escharole."

"Escarole? What is that?"

"It's a green, but I'm thinking I'm dreaming if I thought I could find that here."

We went to the back of the pharmacy, and Nate asked if there was a grocery store in town.

The two white-coated individuals looked at us like that was the dumbest question they'd encountered that week.

"Noooo," the woman responded. "There's one about 30 minutes away, but it's really expensive."

"We're heading to Hearst, and we needed some groceries," Nate said.

"Hearst would have better groceries," the woman responded.

"We don't know what time it would close though," Nate said, and the woman kindly checked on the computer to find that the grocer closed at 9 p.m. We would have plenty of time to get what we needed, or at least what we could find.

"Do you have a phone or wi-fi?" The woman again looked at us with an expression like she saw a kangaroo in Canada. "We're from the U.S., and our phones don't work here," I explained. "We are going to be late getting to Hearst, and we need to contact the bait shop and tell them."

She looked at her co-worker and decided whether she could give us a wi-fi password. She took Nate's phone and input the password so he could make a call to the bait shop via Google. He almost shouted his concern that we would be late to the bait store owner who said, in a French accent, that he could bring our bait to the hotel we were staying at.

We profusely thanked the kind pharmacist and headed back on our way.

What we had concerned a primitive area didn't seem to hold a candle to what we were getting into though. As we left town, a sign said "Check fuel level. No services 211 km."

"Nothing for 211 kilometers?" I asked, aghast.

We turned around to top off the gas tank, better to be safe than sorry, and had to drive all the way back through town to the original general store we passed to fill up. A couple of dogs without collars or tags sat underneath the shade of the store overhang. They didn't seem to belong to anyone.

I decided that I had better make a back-up menu if the many fresh items that I needed weren't available in the town of 2,000 we were heading to.

"I need my recipes. I think they're in the blue tote."

I climbed into the back of the car and tried to dig out my recipes from our tightly packed totes of supplies.

I couldn't find them.

"I forgot, they're in the folder up front."

I sat back in the passenger seat and went through the manila folder of papers we had.

"Oh no."

Nate looked at me then quickly turned his eyes back to the road. "What?"

"I think I forgot my recipes."

"Where are they?"

"I think they're on the floor in our upstairs."

"Guess we'll have to improvise."

"Looks like my chef skills are going to be put to the test here." I got to work writing my back-up plan on the yellow legal pad that had the list of ingredients I still needed to buy.

It was a long trip, but we finally made it to Hearst --- with plenty of gas in the tank --- and were delighted to find a grocery store just like back home, actually larger than what we have in town. It had everything we needed, and I didn't even need a back-up plan.

We had everything ready to go, including getting the bait at our motel, and went into the restaurant for dinner.

"I'll have the salmon burger," I told the waitress. "Fries would be great."

"Gravy fries?" She asked.

I said great, not gravy, but what the heck. "Sure."

We were enjoying our meals, complete with the Canadian staple of gravy fries, when the waitress came over.

"I forgot to bring your ketchup and vinegar."

She said a bottle of white distilled vinegar on the table.

We knew that vinegar on the table was a staple, from watching "Letterkenny," but we thought it was malt vinegar. It turned out it was white vinegar, which made me think more of cleaning than of eating.

Nate poured some on his plate and dipped his salty, crispy fries in it.

"Actually, that's quite good."

"OK, give me some." I dipped my fries in a pool of the clear liquid. "Alright, that is actually good."

It was like salt and vinegar chips but fries. Dip them in vinegar and gravy, and it's even better.

When in Rome, right?

Go to: Part II

Want to be seen a perfect even when you're not?

If lawyers were going through your life and looking at every detail to try to convict you of wrongdoing, could they?

The pastor brought that up on Sunday.

If people looked through your e-mails, texts, the websites you've visited, your school disciplinary records, the voicemails you've left...

It makes you start to feel a little uncomfortable thinking about it, doesn't it?

Even if you've led a "good" life, there are still moments you aren't proud of.

People don't see a need for God because they've led good lives. You've never murdered or cheated, right? But did you steal an orange gummy slice at the grocery store as a kid? Then you've broken the law. You've even broken one of the 10 commandments. Have you ever come to work five minutes late? That's called time theft. Have you ever told a white lie to get out of something you didn't want to do? Have you kept extra change a cashier accidentally gave you?

We've all done something wrong. No one is perfect.

Most little things, we won't see consequences fo. Even big sin doesn't always have tangible consequences. Sometimes murderers walk when there's not enough evidence. Sometimes the bully doesn't get punished. Sometimes the tax evader doesn't get caught.

However, we will all still have to own up for what we've done eventually.

"They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead," 1 Peter 4:5.

The judgement we face will affect us for more than having a tax fine or even life in prison. This judgement affects us for eternity.

God will look at your life and will judge you. Those who aren't be perfect will be punished, fairly.

God is too perfect. He can't be around sin. Any sinful person will be sent to eternal torment.

Well, that's depressing. We're all out of luck, huh, since none of us is perfect? I've never heard anyone claim to be anyway. So there's no hope?

Not exactly.

Jesus was perfect. He was God who came as a man. He lived a perfect life but died as a sacrifice, like a lamb offered as a blood offering. His blood is put on those who accept him as Savior.

When God look at people who have accepted his son, he doesn't see sin. He sees perfection, his own son's perfection.

It's only through Jesus that we can spend eternity out of torment, in perfect relationship with God.

I am not perfect, not even close. I snip at my husband. I am prideful. I gossip.

But thanks to Jesus, God sees me as perfect.

I'm so thankful for that.

Seven isn't enough

We see great people and the way that they make a difference in the world.

Who do you think of when I say that?

Really think about that person that pops into your mind. How did that one person make a difference? Did he have enough money to feed starving nations? Probably not. Did he take on a dictatorship himself and overcome it to save a nation? Probably not. Did he create thousands of jobs to put the poor to work? Probably not.

That's because there is not anything that one person can do, in and of himself or herself, that cane truly make an impact on the world. We need teamwork, we need God.

But that doesn't mean that God won't still call on us to give up what little we have, even if it really won't make that big of a difference.

In Mark, when a crowd of more than 10,000 gathered to hear Jesus speak and didn't eat for three days, Jesus didn't just feed them by creating food out of nothing. He could have. He had already proved that he could miraculously make food by feeding a crowd of 20,000 a few months before that.

Instead, he turned to the apostles and asked them for the loaves of bread that they had.

Seven loaves.

It wasn't enough to feed the crowd. It wasn't even enough to feed themselves. It wouldn't really help the situation.

Jesus asked for those loaves, and he multiplied them into enough to feed thousands.

He wanted the apostles to give up something though. He wanted them to be invested in helping. He wanted them to do their part. He knew their part wouldn't be enough, but he wanted them to be willing to lay down what little they had first.

I think we often think, "I'm not enough." "I don't have enough." "I can't do enough."

It's true. We can't.

However, I think that God expects us to be willing to give up what we have, who we are, what we do and to lay it at his feet. It won't be enough, but it will show that we're invested. It will show that we want to do what we can.

With that commitment, he can then multiply our offering --- whether it be time, money, talent or whatever --- and he will miraculously multiply it to meet the needs of the people around us, wherever he has planted us.

Next time you don't feel like enough, give it up anyway. See where it takes you.

Maybe you'll reach thousands.

As Earth Day approaches...

People I work with assume that I have always been an outdoorsy person.

However, it wasn't very long ago that I was much more concerned with looking cute for my boyfriend while ice fishing than I was with doing any fishing. I didn't want to wear warm socks and boots to hike in cool weather because it wasn't "hot."

A couple of things have changed my outlook on spending time outside. The first was when my husband told me, "You are much cuter when you're not complaining about being cold than when you are cold and trying to look cute." The second was when I started working for a conservation board.

Spending time outside with my husband, and actually being comfortable while doing it, and learning about nature has increased my love of the outdoors by the umpteenth factor.

That love of the outdoors grew when I started to see that every little thing a honeybee does has a purpose, from the chains they make with their bodies to plan their honeycomb to the flapping of their wings that creates a vacuum to help dry down their honey. The world in its minutia is amazing.

My love of the outdoors grew when we first went on a truly outdoorsy vacation to Utah, and I hiked for the first time. It was a strength-building challenge for our marriage (see my blog about Bryce Canyon), but I found a sense of accomplishment in completing a goal and seeing the beauty of what the world had to offer.

My love of the outdoors has also grown as we have worked on our land. Yes, my parents made me pick up sticks and help garden when I was growing up. However, that was nothing compared to the work of cutting down a tree and chopping wood. The hard, sweaty days we have put into our land have continuously left us with a sense of accomplishment, and the nights spent around fires and in the tent listening to raccoons curiously sniff us has made us happy and relaxed.

With my love of the outdoors has grown my love of our great creator. Some people claim that the more you know about science, the less you can believe in God. I have found the exact opposite to be true. The more I learn about the world and experience nature, the more I can't help but see the creator behind the creation.

I simply can't believe that a monarch butterfly caterpillar evolved to grow 1,800 times larger in only four weeks before going into a hard-sided chrysalis to basically liquify and change into a butterfly. The fact that it tastes with its feet to know it is on milkweed so it can lay its egg, because its caterpillar can only eat milkweed, the fact that it can sense the earth's magnetic poles with its antenna so it can find its way south, the fact that its biology changes in the fall so those overwintering are different genetically and live six months as opposed to six weeks --- that can't all be coincidence.

There is a creator behind our world.

And that doesn't lessen nature, it makes it so much better.

When I see the world, I immediately think, "Thank you Lord for creating this moment. Thank you for creating the beauty before me. You are such a huge God."

What would I thank if I didn't believe? It's a gift to be able to thank someone bigger than yourself, someone so huge that a black hole billions of miles away is small to him.

So as we come up to Earth Day and Easter, it seems appropriate that the two are only a day apart. Our God cared so much for us, for this earth that he created, that he sent his only son to become a human, to die for our sins and to rise again so that we can accept his gift of life and live with him forever.

Thank you God that you are so big, so creative, so generous, so graceful.

Flatbreads and family

I have seen a lot of people I grew up with move away only to end up coming back to live near family.

I get it, especially people who move back after they have kids. It's awesome to be near your family, it's great to have back-up to help with kids as well.

My husband and I live about 5.5 hours away from our parents and siblings, and it sucks sometimes because we miss out on celebrations and we don't get to see our families as much as we would like to.

However, the good thing about living farther away is that we get so excited when we get to visit them or when they come visit us. It's awesome to share things about your life, to play games, to reminisce. It becomes a special treat when it doesn't happen as often as if you lived in the same town.

I especially love when our families get to come to church with us or when we get to visit their church homes. My brother's family ended up choosing a different church than the one that we grew up in, and when we visit, it makes us so proud of them. He plays every week in the praise band, and my sister-in-law runs the nursery. The little girls feel right at home. People speak well of them, like they're family.

It makes my heart about burst that they have a church family that loves them and that are working for the kingdom of God. I love it.

Another thing that we love to do when people visit us is take them to fun places to eat. We have a place in town that has a beautiful view and is known for its flatbreads. We also love the brussel sprout appetizer there.

That was the inspiration for a new dish that I tried.

Pesto brussel sprout flatbread
1 prepared pizza dough
About 2 cups brussel sprouts, stemmed and quartered
1/4 pound bacon, sliced
3 Tbsp. jarred pesto
2 cups mozzarella cheese

1. Place a pizza stone or a baking sheet turned upside down into a 425 degree oven until hot.
2. Meanwhile, begin frying bacon until crispy. Take out to drain.
3. When pizza stone or baking sheet is hot, sprinkle with cornmeal and place pizza dough --- stretched into flatbread shape --- on top. My pizza dough made three flatbreads. Bake for 10 minutes.
4. While dough is par-baking, cook brussel sprouts in the bacon grease left in the pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
5. Remove dough from oven. Spread pesto on top, leaving an edge and add brussel sprouts. Sprinkle on mozzarella cheese and top with sliced, crispy bacon.
6. Bake 10-15 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and golden.